By Paul Waldmiller
Did you know that the State of Florida is the number one spot for Spring break attendance?
College revelers are descending on beaches all across Florida including Miami, Daytona, Cocoa and other beaches across our State. While beaches may be the most popular destination for college kids to blow-off steam and consume copious amounts of alcohol along any one of our beautiful waterfronts, 2020 may very well mirror a large influx of college kids also visiting Orlando with higher than normal numbers of attendee’s at Disney, Universal Studio’s and Lego World theme parks.
If you have lived here in Florida long enough and near spring break hotspots, you know that problems exist every year during this time. Although tourism is our number one industry, we also have problems often associated with college kids who come here to visit. Some of those issues are not only a local nuisance but a State-wide issue that we all pay for.
Those issues are:
1) Emergency room visits. We see an influx visits to our Emergency rooms during spring break. Medical issues such as alcohol poisoning, auto accident injuries, injuries due to being under the influence of alcohol or drugs and incidents of other physical harm all go up. Our health services of course cost money and not all college age kids have medical insurance.
2) Arrests. We see a marked increase in arrests of college age students during spring break. Arrests vary from petty theft, DWI, assault and rape. Bottom line, our law enforcement officials and courts costs us money.
3) Spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Large groups of people anywhere with just one person carrying the Coronavirus, could bring a pandemic of the virus.